Protecting our Rural Areas
During 2007, Charlottesville Tomorrow is exploring issues around protection of our rural areas. Charlottesville Tomorrow seeks to preserve the outstanding natural resources and traditional rural character that has made the region so desirable. Just as Albemarle wouldn’t be the same without Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall and the University of Virginia, the City wouldn’t be the same without the County’s rural character. We all have a stake in the County’s rural development patterns for both aesthetic and quality of life reasons as well as for important issues like transportation and water supply planning.
 RESEARCH REPORT RELEASED * July 30, 2007
From February to June 2007, Charlottesville Tomorrow conducted a non-partisan public opinion research project to assess the views of voters related to Albemarle County’s rural countryside, community infrastructure, and satisfaction with local government leadership on these issues.
KEY FINDINGS RELATED TO RURAL AREAS
In a telephone survey of 1,045 registered voters in Albemarle County...
- 95.4% of respondents feel the rural countryside is very or somewhat important to their quality of life.
- Looking at respondents’ views of the role of local government, 85.4% agreed strongly or somewhat that government has a role to play setting rural area policies.
- When respondents were asked whether making it easier to build in designated growth areas would help protect the countryside, 71.1% agreed strongly or somewhat with that approach.
- Only 33.5% of respondents agreed strongly or somewhat that decisions about the use of rural land should be left entirely to private property owners.
- There is strong public support for policies, like phasing or time based zoning, that would set a schedule for the rate of new development in Albemarle County’s rural areas. 77.8% of respondents indicated they would be likely or very likely to support such a policy.
- 86.1% of respondents think the rate of new home construction in Albemarle’s rural countryside should be slower.
- 81.4% of respondents indicated they support the use of tax dollars to purchase rural development rights if it would permanently protect the land with conservation easements.
- 58.4% of respondents indicated they strongly or somewhat supported the land use taxation program.
- 48.9% of respondents indicated satisfaction with government’s efforts to make decisions to protect the rural countryside.
Charlottesville Tomorrow commissioned Interviewing Service of America (ISA) to conduct a telephone survey of registered voters in Albemarle County, Virginia. Voters were called between June 20-28, 2007 and randomly selected from a universe of 45,932 voters whose telephone numbers were identified in a phone match by Blaemire Communications. The ISA telephone survey has a confidence rate of 95%, and a sampling error rate of ±3%. A total of 1,045 interviews were completed with a participation rate of 27% and an incidence rate of 100%. Respondents were asked twenty topical questions and nine demographic/qualifying questions in a survey that typically took 11 to 20 minutes to complete. Download the report for complete information on the survey methodology and results.
You can monitor our work in this area by subscribing to our Rural Area alerts in the subscription management page. Current news about Albemarle County's consideration of changes to rural area protection policies can be found on the Charlottesville Tomorrow Weblog [Click here for all rural areas postings].
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